we yet seen the full play of the political machine, nor its whole effect on manners and society. Nor have we modified the habits, manners, and tastes received from our ancestors, so as to adapt them in all respects to the climate we have found, or the polity we have established. In our turn of thought and prevailing opinions may yet be found something of the English leaven, even, sometimes, when it contravenes our own institutions; as in our habitations, our dress, and many other physical circumstances, there is yet a spice of English taste, not always very suitable to our local condition.

The translation of this work is executed with ease and spirit, and with a discernible and very proper adherence to the style of the original, which is, however, not exactly the French of a. Frenchman. To this adherence to the original may be attributed a few Gallicisms here and there. Some errors of haste are also observable both in the translation and in the typography; and as haste is hardly a legitimate excuse for errors in the eyes of reviewers, we hope there may be an opportunity for correcting them in a second edition. The notes appended are respectable, and, besides some corrections of the author's mistakes, contain judicious reflections. On the whole it is a modest and sensible book, which its translator has given to us in an agreeable style; and which we hope will be read, if it be only to see. with what candor and discretion the subject of a despotic prince can speak of a republic and its institutions.

ART. XII.- CRITICAL NOTICES.

1.-Oration pronounced before the Citizens of Providence, on the 4th of July, 1826, being the Fiftieth Anniversary of American Independence. By WILLIAM HUNTER. Providence. 8vo. pp. 46.

ORATIONS, addresses, eulogies, and the like, come upon us so thickly, that we find it impossible to do them any justice, within the compass prescribed to us, either by a formal criticism, or general notice. The number of pamphlets of this description, which have been laid on our table during the last quarter, if brought under review in detail, would afford matter more than enough to fill up the entire pages of our journal. This multiplicity renders a selection, which shall do equal justice to all, by no means easy, even if we had much more room to spare, than our accustomed limits will allow. We hope this will be a sufficient apology to publishers and authors, for not acknowledging their liberality in supplying us with works of this kind, in a more substantial manner, than merely inserting their titles in our list of new publications. From the nature of our work, which is meant to contain, not a review of books only, but discussions of interesting and important topics, we can rarely do more than this with the mass of new books. The American press is becoming so fruitful, that a short notice of every work would so much encumber our pages, as to leave little or no room for the execution of its main purpose, and we must be contented with making what we deem the less sacrifice. It is our aim, however, to bring before the public whatever is most valuable, and most worthy of observation, in the literary as well as the political progress of the country. But, as we cannot do everything, we are fully sensible that our judgment may not always guide us to do what is best, and herein we claim as much indulgence, as the good nature of our readers shall incline them to think we deserve, and no more.

We call attention to Mr Hunter's oration, chiefly to bring out a few historical facts, which the author has interwoven with his discourse, relating to the State of Rhode Island. Beginning with the first planting of the colony, he observes,

Roger Williams, the founder of Providence Plantations, the learned and popular divine of Salem, insisted for freedom of conscience in worship, even "to Papists and Arminians;" with security of civil peace. He was banished in 1634-5, as a disVOL. XXIII. NO. 53.

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turber of the peace of the church and commonwealth. You know the rest- I dare not dilate upon it. The water of that spring near which he took refuge, overlooked from the neighboring hills by armed, but to him harmless savages, ought to be on this day the exhilarating beverage of his descendants-more exhilarating and heartcheering "than costliest wines of Chios or of Crete." Hutcheson, who, as Cotton says, " was once beloved, and all the faithful embraced her conference, and blessed God for her fruitful discourses," with Coddington, and all her train of Antinomians, were disfranchised and banished, and in their place of refuge, the great island of Adquidneck, Rhode Island, passed in solemn resolve, the earliest and the most strenuous declaration of the principles of perfect freedom in religious concernments, the world had ever known. The third and last, but not less interesting foundation by these primary associations that formed this state, all proceeding from the same persecution, and the same manful opposition, was the settlement of the Gortonists, on lands purchased of Shaw Omet, the Sachem of the Narragansetts. These are the men of Kent, the settlers of the town of Warwick.

'If ever there was a complete and victorious vindication against the sarcasm, that our ancestors were so barbarous, as not to be capable of good sense and good English, it is furnished by the paper issued by the owners and inhabitants of Shaw Omet, dated 28th October, 1643. This paper was addressed to certain men styled Commissioners, sent from the Massachusetts, supported by an armed force, whose names, they say in contemptuous defiance, -" we know not." That paper is heroic, and Homeric; Demosthenian, but superior to Demosthenes. "If you come," say they, "to treat with us in the ways of equity and peace, together therewith, shaking a rod over our heads, in a band of soldiers; be assured that we have passed our childhood in that point, and are under the commission of the great God, not to be children in understanding, neither in courage, but to acquit ourselves like men. We strictly charge you hereby, that you set not a foot upon our lands, in any hostile way, but upon your perils; and that, if any blood be shed, upon your heads shall it be. And know, that if you set an army of men upon any part of our land, contrary to our just prohibition therein, we are under command, and have our commission sealed, all ready to resist you unto death. For this is the law of our God, by whom we stand, which is written in all men's hearts, that, if ye spread a table before.us as friends, we sit not as men invective, envious, or malcontent, not touching a morsel, nor looking from you, who point us unto our dish, but we eat with you, by virtue of the unfeigned law of relations, not only to satisfy our stomachs, but to increase friendship and love, the end of feastings. So also, if you visit us as combatants, or warriors, by the same law of relations we will resist you unto death." But their courage could not save them from overwhelming force, preceded, however, by the basest treachery. Gorton, and his associates, Green, Holden, and others, were imprisoned; and Gorton was condemned as a blasphemous enemy of the true religion and its ordinances, adjudged to be confined and set to work, and to bear such bolts as may hinder his escape during the pleasure of the Court; but should he break his confinement, then to suffer death.' pp. 21-24.

Again;

'The charter ultimately procured by the talents, address, and good fortune of Clark, under the form of a corporation, has all the essentials of a well tempered democracy. The king, after he granted it, virtually excluded himself from any interference with it. He had no viceroy, he had no veto on the laws of the colony. We endured not his actual or constructive presence. We felt his power hardly at all, his influence rarely, but always benignantly and beneficially. In the first session of the Assembly under that charter, and indeed before it had passed through all the ceremonies of a royal grant, we anticipated and settled that topic of controversy, which a century afterwards convulsed the world. In March, 1663, in an act for declaring the privileges of his majesty's subjects, it was enacted "that no tax shall be imposed or required of the colonies, but by the act of the General Assembly." When Andros, under the commission of James II, called for the surrender of our charter, we did not surrender it. Though we bent before the storm, we did not break down under it. We preserved the charter as the talisman of our being, the palladium of our rights, the idol of our affections. Awaiting the revolution of 1688, we temporized, and though the charter had been, so far as irregular power could do it, annulled, after that glorious event, viz. the revolution of 1688, we went on acting under it, without clamor or apology, as unharmed and unforfeited. When the mother country was in the right, or we thought it so, nothing could surpass the energy and enthusiasm of our patriotism. Under the fascinating influence of the administration of the elder Pitt, we sent five hundred men into the Canadian expedition.' pp. 28, 29.

The following events show the determined and noble spirit of the people of Rhode Island, in resisting the first symptoms of British aggression, which hastened the revolution. It will doubtless be thought, that Mr Hunter a little overrates the importance of these events; but the lofty feeling of patriotism and self respect which prompted them, can never be estimated too highly.

Before the enactment, or during the negligent enforcement of the English Laws of Trade, we grew up with prodigious thriftiness. The new system adopted after the peace of 1763, not only checked our commerce, but indicated a systematic design of oppression. Of this design, we had an intuitive conception, and to it an invincible repugnance. It has lately, not two months ago, been stated by a British minister in the House of Commons, "that however the attempt at taxation might be viewed as the immediate cause of the American explosion, yet the train had been long laid, in the severe and unbending efforts of England to extend more rigorously than ever the Laws of Trade." "Every little case," he says, "that was brought before the Board of Trade, was treated with the utmost severity." * The two really great cases that occurred, originated here. The first was the attack at Newport, on the 17th of June, 1769, of the armed revenue sloop, Liberty, whose captain had been guilty of some oppressions and enormities. She was attacked by a band of unknown people, who cut her cables, let her drive on shore on the point, where they cut away her masts, scuttled her, carried both her boats to the recently planted liberty tree, at the upper end of the town, and burnt them. The second was the affair of the Gaspee, on the 9th of June, 1772. The first blood that was shed in the revolutionary contest, by that very act begun, stained her deck, and it was drawn by a Rhode Island hand. Yes, the blood of Lieutenant Duddington was the first blood drawn in the American cause. The scene of the transaction is within our view, and you have now in this assembly four of the lads, now veterans, who were zealous and foremost partizans, on that brave occasion. How powerfully permanent is the effect of early principle and habit, how indestructible the cast of original character! How true it is, that "as the twig is bent, the tree inclines." From all I know of these gentlemen, and I have known a good deal-from all their merits and their peculiarities, I should have said, that these were the men, that were engaged in that enterprise. They are they, who on the proposition of their patriotic leader, John Brown, exclaimed, "We are the boys that can do it."" pp. 30-32.

The same spirit was kept alive, till the revolutionary contest became general, as will be seen by the following statement.